the once and future tropie

every month i'm surprised by how quickly the previous one ended.

2014-02-01T18:52:58Z

Books

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

Movies

Out of the Furnace
Her

Television

Brooklyn Nine-Nine 1x12, 1x13, 1x14
Buffy Season 3, S4 through Who Are You?
Episodes 3x01, 3x02, 3x03
House of Lies 3x01, 3x02, 3x03
New Girl 3x11, 3x12, 3x13
Star Trek: DS9 1x05, 1x06
The Mindy Project 2x12, 2x13, 2x14
True Detective 1x01, 1x02, 1x03

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THIRTEEN

2014-01-02T00:32:23Z

2012.

( 2013 )

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NOVIEMBRE

2013-12-04T16:36:17Z

Books

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
The Tiger’s Wife, Téa Obreht
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Movies

12 Years a Slave

Television

Buffy season two (rewatch)
Masters of Sex 1x06, 1x07, 1x08, 1x09
The Mindy Project 2x06, 2x07, 2x08, 2x09, 2x10
New Girl 3x07, 3x08, 3x09, 3x10
Star Trek: DS9 1x01, 1x02, 1x03

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going up november

2013-11-20T18:13:07Z

November! I know November is widely regarded as the asshole month of the year, but I actually like it quite a bit more than, say, March (important birthdays notwithstanding) because there is enough impending holiday stuff that I'm super excited for the month.

+ The restoration company has said we will probably be back home before Christmas, which I am trying not to think about too much because I have gotten my hopes up many many times in these 9 months, but I also told my mom that if that happens it's my favorite Christmas present, SORRY EVERYONE ELSE.

+ I'm knitting a sweater for my sister to Christmas, speaking of holidays, and it's going well.......for it being a fair isle sweater and I have only knitted in the base color so far! Ha...ha! It actually looks like a sweater instead of three weird piles now, which I'm counting as definite progress.

+ I am STILL trying to meet my Goodreads goal despite it getting all shirty with me about my having a meltdown this summer:

I CAN STILL MAKE IT!!!

+ Speaking of projects that are definitely great ideas, I'm rewatching Buffy from the beginning and if there was ever a moment for a Troy Barnes MY EMOTIONS!!! scene, this is it. I'm almost finished with season two, so I'm sure I'll have a 10,000 word essay on that when I finish. MY HEAAAART.

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the month i rediscovered tv

2013-11-02T02:11:43Z

Books

Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

Movies

The Bling Ring
Gravity

Television

Brooklyn Nine Nine 1x01, 1x02, 1x03, 1x04, 1x05, 1x06
Buffy season one (rewatch)
Masters of Sex 1x01, 1x02, 1x03, 1x04, 1x05
The Mindy Project 1x19, 1x20, 1x21, 2x01, 2x02, 2x03, 2x04, 2x05
New Girl 2x03, 2x04, 2x05, 2x06

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only scaring yourself

2013-10-11T23:52:37Z

A quarterly update!!

TV UPDATE: I really have no idea what I am going to be watching this year, other than sitcoms (New Girl, Brooklyn Nine Nine, Mindy Project if we ever catch up on it). I've been meaning to pick up Elementary for ages, but other than that….? I think this may be the year I catch up on all the imports I've been meaning to for ages.

WORK UPDATE: ( insert jim quote here )

HOUSING UPDATE: blaaaagh. We're in the process of picking everything out for the restoration, FINALLY, which is exciting but also exhausting. We're probably not going to be back before the end of the year. This mostly stresses me out and makes me sad, and I don't want to think about it anymore!

OTHER: Wedding season is finally over, everyone take a celebratory nap! The final damage was 6 weddings including 10 events attended in 3 states. May I never have a season like this every again, amen.

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.......and september!

2013-10-09T21:24:15Z

Books

The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner (reread)
The Queen of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner (reread)
The King of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner (reread)

Movies

Ken Burns: The War

Television

Dexter 8x12, 8x13
New Girl 3x01, 3x02
The Newsroom 2x08, 2x09

APPENDIX:
1: I don't feel like this adequately captures just HOW MANY TIMES I reread QOA/KOA last month. It was a lot of times. A LOT.
2: The War was a really incredible documentary. It's Ken Burns, so it's a miniseries that is like 14 hours total (there's a reason it is the majority of what I watched in September), but that time is not wasted AT ALL. It's a bottom up series of stories about the war, focusing on four towns in the US and how people in those towns experienced the war, but it gets into so much more that most histories do, like what it meant for Mobile, Alabama to become a huge factory town with a ton of migrant workers, many of whom were black and coming into the segregation South for "better work" and how that affected the idea of double victory, and what it meant for Asian-American soldiers to enlist. There is a lot of graphic imagery, not surprisingly, particularly "The Ghost Front", which details among other things US soldiers discovering concentration camps.

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RIGHT ON TIME EH

2013-09-13T01:28:12Z

Books

Elders, Ryan McIlvain
Finnikin of the Rock, Melina Marchetta
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs

Movies

Fruitvale Station
Safety Not Guaranteed
Everything Must Go
Blue Jasmine

Television

The Newsroom 2x05, 2x06 2x07
Pretty Little Liars 4x08, 4x09, 4x10, 4x11, 4x12

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CATCH-UP ROUND

2013-08-01T21:46:00Z

Books

All The President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Movies

Stoker
Pacific Rim
Bachelorette
Jackie Brown
Castle in the Sky
Only Yesterday
Lust, Caution

Television

Dexter 8x01, 8x02, 8x03
Family Tree Season One
Luther 3x01, 3x02, 3x03, 3x04
The Newsroom 2x01, 2x02, 2x03
Pretty Little Liars 4x04, 4x05, 4x06, 4x07

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TWOFER!

2013-07-11T23:26:49Z

May

Books

Moondust, Andrew Smith
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, Lucy Knisley
The Bling Ring, Nancy Jo Sales
Escape From Camp 14, Blaine Harden and Shin Dong-hyuk

Movies

Star Trek Into Darkness

Television

Adventure Time 1x01, 1x02, 1x03
The Borgias 3x04, 3x05, 3x06
Mad Men 6x04, 6x05

June

Books

Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon

Movies

I don’t think I watched a single movie in June, JUNE WAS A NIGHTMARE.

Television

The Borgias 3x07, 3x08, 3x09, 3x10
Mad Men 6x06, 6x07, 6x08, 6x09, 6x10, 6x11, 6x12, 6x13
Pretty Little Liars 4x01, 4x02, 4x03
Veep 2x04, 2x05, 2x06, 2x07, 2x08, 2x09, 2x10

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what's your favorite hammock book?

2013-06-16T15:59:10Z

Summer is the best time for getting obsessed with a new (to you) book series, isn't it? I have fond memories of curling up with the first Harry Potter book when my parents got it for me for Christmas, but all the real marathons took place holed up somewhere with popsicles or iced tea.

Great summer obsessions of the past have included:

- the Wizard of OZ series
- Nancy Drew series
- Redwall (for like four consecutive summers, holla)
- Tortall (Alanna and Wild Magic series)
- Josephine Bonaparte series

Had I had a better library as a kid, I'm sure Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones would have been amazing for this. This summer so far I've been getting into some true crime (starting with The Bling Ring, natch). So what are/were yours? Are they worth checking out again?

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tap tap

2013-06-15T22:51:16Z

Well, I forgot to upload my medialog for May, which should be a good indicator of how things are going over here! Some updates:

+ Found a short term lease for the fall, since it looks like construction is going to be ongoing for a while. On the one hand it sucks to have to really acknowledge how long it's going to be before we are able to go home, but it's also just really nice to have a bit more stability in the near future. Also, like, man. I love this friend we've been crashing with, but sometimes you just need to be able to walk around in your underwear and not worry about it. So! That's nice.

+ I had my wisdom teeth out yesterday, FINALLYYYYYYY. I was enjoying the soup and rice pudding of it all, but I'm just about ready to go back to CHEWING ON THINGS. Tragically, I think my advice was to wait for slightly longer than 24 hours. Maybe I have super healing powers, DOCTORS (no. no I do not.)

+ I HAVE been using this time to marathon hella tv, which has been pretty nice, although I think I was still a little too high yesterday to appreciate it. I did have enough sense to not attempt Sexy Popes or Hannibal, as I figured between the gauze and the nausea, those would not go super well together.

+ About two weeks ago I went on a tumblr hiatus, which has done WONDERS for my internet stress levels, but has reminded me that I miss the internet circa, like, 2007. Come back to the five and dime, journaling websites! I guess this will be my annual attempt to get back into actually maintaining this page, so let's all enjoy this rollercoaster.

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timely smimely

2013-05-04T15:12:10Z

Books

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon (reread)
A Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers

Movies

The Place Beyond the Pines
The Big Wedding

Television

The Borgias 3x01, 3x02, 3x03
Broadchurch 1x01, 1x02, 1x03, 1x04, 1x05, 1x06, 1x07, 1x08
Mad Men 6x01, 6x02, 6x03
Veep 2x01, 2x02

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but at least it smells like spring

2013-04-14T23:27:48Z

I feel so behind on everything, all the time. My boss gave me the nicest possible talking-to about my forgetting to send some documents before a meeting he had, but it was still, ugh. After forgetting my debit card while getting coffee (recovered several hours later) and leaving my phone at a restaurant (recovered within the hour), I had a personal come to jesus evaluation with myself, but it still makes me feel like an alien with tunnel vision all the time.

* We went to a wedding in Chicago a few weekends ago, which was lovely, even if in attending we picked up two other weddings to attend later in the summer. That brings the total up to six.

* A combination of the fire, getting sick, getting sick again but a different way, and finally resolving my knee issues has put more of a fuck up dent in my training for the half marathon than I would have liked. I don't want to say that I don't think I'll break two hours, because I hate the feeling like I constantly set goals for myself and then make excuses for why they're unreasonable, but I just don't know.

* Apartment restoration is really getting going, now: ( Read more... )

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tropiavera @ 2013-04-05T13:33:00

2013-04-05T17:38:47Z

Belated media round-up! Nothing in my life is organized or on time anymore.

Books

This is How You Lose Her, Junot Díaz
The Yellow Birds, Kevin Powers
Swimming Studies, Leanne Shapton

Movies

Modern Times
The Fall
Splendor in the Grass
The Day I Saw Your Heart
Oz: The Great and Powerful
The Gatekeepers

Television

The Americans 1x01
Battleground 1x04, 1x05, 1x06, 1x07, 1x08, 1x09, 1x10, 1x11, 1x12, 1x13
Pretty Little Liars 3x22, 3x23
New Girl 2x19
The Mindy Project 1x17

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tree pretty.

2013-03-21T21:05:17Z

Today in, a supposedly not at all fun experience I don’t want to repeat: having your apartment building catch fire.

I woke up around 7:15 to an explosion, followed shortly by the fire alarms going off. K and I grabbed some random stuff and went outside - my building’s alarms go off ALL THE TIME, so we weren’t really sure that it wasn’t just another fake out, until we got downstairs and saw all the smoke coming out of the building. After the fifth fire truck showed up, we decided we weren’t getting back in any time soon (and since it was about 15 degrees this morning), we walked over to a friend’s place nearby to crash for a while. I walked back over after an hour or so to check on things, but they’d sent everyone over the gym at the school across the street, where the Red Cross was checking on everyone and handing out coffee and bagels.

A few hours after THAT, coming back from lunch, I asked a fireman if people were being allowed back in and he said yeah, people were being escorted back in on a conditional basis, so I went in and went super intense anxiety bag lady on everything, like every nightmare about what I would emergency pack if I had to leave in a hurry. When I called my folks, my mom was like, “I’m so glad you’re okay. Did you take your jewelry?” JESUS. (And then, when I went back over a little while ago to talk to the building manager, I went back up to grab a couple things I’d forgotten - power chargers mostly - and did take the damn jewelry, because I promised. MOMS.)

We got so, so lucky: we’re both safe, nothing irreplaceable or even difficult to replace or clean is damaged. It’s just scary.

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why don't you read me what's in the vending machine.

2013-03-18T02:49:58Z

+ blaaaah, this week: my boss asked that I come in early tomorrow*, which is funny because I was already planning to come in early to finish a project. Double-early on a Monday, awesome stuff.

+ I think I've finally gotten through the section of my Netflix queue where I decided to get into classic movies. I'm excited for whatever the next random phase I was in, I'm guessing about 15 months ago. I'm hoping for a mid-90s renaissance period.

+ My car is slowly but surely falling apart: right now it acknowledges that it has a functioning CD player, like, 30% of the time. Most mornings it plays 20 seconds of a song and then starts skipping so aggressively that I debate pulling over and debate beating it with my shoe, which is nice, because it saves my coffee for until I actually get into the office.

+ Wow, this sounds like a bummer. I actually had a very nice week! Ran 12.5 miles (total)! Last weekend I drove up to Toronto and ate everything, please adopt me, Canadians at large. Bought some incredibly, magnificently hideous plaid shorts in order to psych myself up for spring; it's almost working.

*"I don't want to ask you to come in early, but could you come in at 8?"

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come on, 2012 book list. let's get in gear.

2013-03-01T15:49:31Z

Books

Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
Persuasion, Jane Austen (reread)

Movies

The Trip
The Vow
Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Television

Battleground 1x02, 1x03
Gravity Falls 1x13
The Mindy Project 1x14, 1x15, 1x16
My Mad Fat Diary 1x01, 1x02, 1x03, 1x04, 1x05, 1x06
New Girl 2x16, 2x17, 2x18
Pretty Little Liars 3x18, 3x19, 3x20, 3x21

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feeling overwhelmed by my to-do list, part one million

2013-02-18T03:41:05Z

+ I still haven't finished one single thing that I meant to do in January. What's up, 9-5 schedule week day shut down, you're the worst.

+ DC in February: apparently still no joke, winter-wise. Jesus. My poor toes.

+ Suddenly I feel old, part 1: how do I already have 4-5 weddings to go to this year, and as a follow-up, how am I a person who seriously schedules things months in advance, I might as well go ahead and take that wine class already.

+ My Mad Fat Diary is a beautiful, painful treasure.

+ I am going to actually change my bike seat this week! If I say it out loud then it will definitely actually happen! On account of how shame is the only factor my lizard brain acknowledges as motivation!

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Silver?? Damn you, Zimbabwe!

2013-02-02T22:39:03Z

Books

1968, Mark Kurlansky
Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
The Time in Between, Maria Dueñas

Movies

Django Unchained

Television

Battleground 1x01
Girls 2x01, 2x02, 2x03, 2x04
The Mindy Project 1x10, 1x12, 1x13
New Girl 2x12, 2x13, 2x14, 2x15
Pretty Little Liars 3x14, 3x15, 3x16, 3x17
Shameless 3x02

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humming along to a mashup: not beginner level

2013-01-28T00:42:49Z

One last year end list!

I like how misleading looking October is, if you don't know that I started biking a lot more. No, surprise, I actually swam 77 miles in one month.

My work trip went pretty well, 12+ hours of transit on the return leg due to a blizzard NOTWITHSTANDING. The best ever news: my work nemesis quit! If you're wondering how did I already acquire a work nemesis, other than through the sheer force of my charming personality and the sheer force of his constant need to talk about strippers, I just don't know what to tell you.

So far I have accomplished only one thing on my to-do list for January, even the fun things. Fun things remaining: watch [all the movies], Elementary, finish The Hour (hahaha). The only good thing about work trips is that I end up reading a shit load due to SO MUCH AIRPORT DOWNTIME. I finally finished 1968, which was awesome, but I had been reading it since sometime embarrassing like September.

Let's play a game called: Is this cute, or terrifying?

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ten friends together in that photograph

2013-01-21T23:34:59Z

With a little over a year left to go, I am 32% finished with my "101 in 1001" list. Lots of those - not enough! - are "in progress", mentally "almost finished", but still. Let's go, self, goshhhhhh.

One thing I did recently: bought myself tickets to the NYC Ballet performing Balanchine's Swan Lake as a birthday present! It was amaaazing, I got all emotional during the finale because I am a total wad about music I listened to too much as a child, and my darling husband fell asleep several times. Obviously. Every time I've been back to New York since college, more of my friends have moved there, but I never regret leaving, not really. It's good to be able to go back and visit friends and the places that feel like old friends.

I'm going to Florida for business tomorrow, but I would really like to just rest my feet for a while, please.

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both an eve and a day.

2013-01-02T01:57:03Z

Happy New Year!

Books

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookshop, Robin Sloan
The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Movies

Emma
Take This Waltz

Television

Breaking Bad 1x01, 1x02, 1x03, 1x05, 1x06, 1x07
Dexter 7x10, 7x11, 7x12
Homeland 2x10
The Mindy Project 1x08, 1x09
New Girl 2x10, 2x11

Well, I didn't quite get to 50 books this year - I'm in the middle of two, but finished neither. Still, 48! That's more than any year I can remember before I started college, I think. I don't remember if I tried to do the same with movies last year, but I'm going to this year. And tv...yikes. I watch a lot of tv and I don't actually like a good chunk of that. Maybe this year I will only watch tv I care about. I'd like to feel like I waste less time this year.

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ze update

2012-12-25T04:57:10Z

2011.

( 2012 )

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novembrrrrr.

2012-12-02T17:34:32Z

Books

I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett
please don’t come back from the moon, Dean Bakopoulos
The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart
Packing for Mars, Mary Roach
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (reread)

Movies

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Man With the Iron Fists
Romantics Anonymous
Every Little Step

Television

Boardwalk Empire 3x04, 3x05, 3x06, 3x07, 3x08, 3x09, 3x10, 3x11
Dexter 7x07, 7x08, 7x09
Homeland 2x06, 2x07, 2x08, 2x09
The Hour 2x01
The Mindy Project 1x05, 1x06, 1x07
New Girl 2x07, 2x08, 2x09
Parks and Recreation 5x05, 5x06, 5x07, 5x08

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